Liberal Democrats

Danny Alexander

Alexander is Clegg's chief-of-staff. His career with the Lib Dems began as a press officer for the party's Scottish branch in 1993. He went on to a number of senior communication roles within the party. Alexander was elected to the seat of Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey in 2005 when he received a £2,500 donation from the then-Labour peer Lord Hoskins, who was expelled from the Labour party as a result. In 2007 he became the Lib Dem spokesman for work and pensions before being appointed Clegg's chief of staff the following year. As chair of the party's manifesto group, Alexander was also responsible for delivery of the document on which the Lib Dems' fought the general election.

Chris Huhne

The Lib Dems' home affairs spokesman lost out to Nick Clegg in the party's leadership election in 2007. Like Clegg, he was educated at Westminster school and Oxbridge. He worked as a journalist for many years, writing columns on economics for publications including the Guardian. He only entered parliament in 2005, as MP for Eastleigh, having previously been an MEP. But within months he was appointed as the Lib Dems' Treasury spokesman. Huhne, who was also unsuccessful in a 2006 bid to become leader, when he lost out to Sir Menzies Campbell, positioned himself to the left of Clegg in the 2007 race, which he lost narrowly. Clegg subsequently appointed his erstwhile rival as home affairs spokesman.

David Laws

The Lib Dems' education spokesman, a former investment banker, has earned a reputation as being on the right of the party for his enthusiasm for free market policies. He was co-author of the Orange Book, a 2004 collection of essays in which he championed free trade and the private sector. He was elected to parliament on his second attempt when, in 2001, he succeeded Paddy Ashdown as MP for Yeovil. He became a member of the Treasury select committee and Liberal Democrat spokesman for defence in the same year. Ashdown thought Laws was a Tory mole. George Osborne tried to persuade Laws to join the Conservatives but was sent packing. His seat was a target for the Conservatives in the general election but he won comfortably with a 55.7% share of the vote.

Andrew Stunell

The MP for Hazel Grove is the least recognisable of the Lib Dem negotiating team. Despite his relatively low profile, he was deputy chair of the party's election campaign. Stunell, a former lay Baptist preacher, is also a chief whip. He served as political secretary of the association of Liberal Democrat councillors from 1989 to 1996. Stunell was elected to parliament at his fifth attempt in 1997.

Conservatives

William Hague

Despite his underwhelming stint as party leader, Hague is universally respected and described by David Cameron as his deputy in all but name, stepping in at PMQs when Cameron is away. Hague has been immune to the criticism directed at other members of Cameron's inner circle for the Conservative failure to win a majority. As a former management consultant at McKinsey, he is an experienced negotiator. Despite speculation that he could return as party leader someday, he has declared that he has no such intentions.

Oliver Letwin

Compared with his previous roles of shadow home secretary and shadow chancellor, Letwin's current position as chairman of the Conservative research unit is relatively low profile and he is a less visible presence in the party's hierarchy. But, as one of the main authors of the party's manifesto, his importance to Cameron cannot be understated. An old Etonian like his boss, Letwin has been a central figure in the Tory leader's inner circle since he became the first member of the shadow cabinet to support Cameron's leadership in 2005. As one of the brains behind the Conservatives' "big society" pledge, he has been attacked by rightwingers, who believe the idea at the heart of the Conservative manifesto was confusing and impossible to sell to voters.

George Osborne

The shadow chancellor is Cameron's closest ally, a fellow former Bullingdon club member, albeit a few years after Cameron, and a member of the Notting Hill set. Together the pair have attempted to position the Conservative party towards the centre ground, which Tony Blair made Labour's domain. Osborne ran Cameron's leadership campaign and was just 33 when made shadow chancellor in 2005. He was targeted by Labour during the election campaign as a perceived weak link but retains Cameron's loyalty. However, it is his very closeness to the Tory leader that has seen him criticised for the party's failure to score the resounding victory that would have made the current negotiations unnecessary.

Ed Llewellyn

The least familiar face on the Conservative negotiating team, Cameron's chief-of-staff was at Eton and Oxford with the Tory leader. In between Eton and Oxford, Llewellyn worked for Conservative central office. After leaving university he worked as an aide to former governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, and later for Paddy Ashdown while the former Lib Dem leader was the UN high representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Labour

Douglas Alexander

Alexander is the secretary of state for international development and was Labour's general election campaign coordinator. He first worked for Gordon Brown while a student at Edinburgh University and entered the Commons in 1997. A member of Brown's inner circle, his star was in the ascendancy until he was blamed for urging the prime minister to hold a snap poll in 2007 on succeeding Tony Blair as prime minister. Labour never recovered from the fallout from the decision not to hold an election in the face of a Tory resurgence in the polls, and neither did Alexander's career. As Labour's election chief during the 2007 Scottish parliament elections he was also blamed for voting chaos caused by the Scotland Office's design of ballot papers. As campaign coordinator during the general election he was largely overshadowed by Peter Mandelson.

Ed Balls

Brown's closest ally, the combative and ambitious secretary of state for children, schools and families did not enter parliament until 2005. But he had already been dubbed one of the most powerful unelected officials in the country having acted as an economic adviser to Brown for 10 years from 1994, three years before New Labour swept to power. Like Alexander, he was blamed for the fiasco over the aborted snap election. Married to fellow cabinet member Yvette Cooper, he retains ambitions of leading the Labour party and has support from the unions, but he is a deeply unpopular figure with some Labour party members. When there was a suggestion Brown might replace Alistair Darling as chancellor with Balls there was a furious reaction from some quarters. He held on to his parliamentary seat by a just 1,101 votes at the general election amid a concerted Tory campaign.

Harriet Harman

Harman was elected deputy leader of the Labour party in 2007, having seemingly been confined to the political wilderness. She was appointed secretary of state for social security when Labour took power in 1997, but lasted little over a year. She later served as solicitor general and minister for constitutional affairs. After her surprise victory in the deputy leadership race she was appointed as leader of the House of Commons and minister for women and equality. Her frequent pronouncements on equality have seen her dubbed "Hattie Harperson" by the rightwing press, although many believe she is unfairly targeted because she is a woman. She is a close ally of Brown's although has often been reported as harbouring her own ambitions to become prime minister.

Lord Adonis

The transport secretary was previously a Lib Dem councillor and parliamentary candidate and was encouraging his former party's supporters to vote tactically in favour of Labour during the election campaign. He said the parties had few "fundamental differences" and should unite against the Conservatives. Adonis is a Blairite who, as an architect of the academies programme, was courted by the Conservatives. He was a key member of Tony Blair's Downing Street policy unit from 1998 until 2005, during which time he is thought to have clashed with Brown when he was chancellor.

Lord Mandelson

One of New Labour's architects, he made a surprise return to the cabinet (for the third time) as business secretary in 2008 to serve Brown, the man with whom he had a feud dating back more than a decade when he supported Brown's rival Tony Blair for the Labour leadership. But he was never likely to settle for a backseat role and he was de facto manager of Labour's election campaign, often to be seen holding court at daily press conferences where the latest shots against the Conservatives were fired. A divisive figure in the past, there were signs at the last Labour party conference that members may – as Tony Blair once urged them to – have "learned to love" Mandelson.